Letter to the community on Institute-wide planning

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To Members of the MIT Community:

In December, we announced that MIT would soon launch an Institute-wide planning process to determine how we can carry out our core mission more efficiently, using fewer financial resources and without decreasing the quality of our work. We are now ready to begin that inclusive process, drawing on the creativity, innovation and collaboration that MIT is known for. It will be important to work together as a community on these long-term improvements, as we ride out this serious and unpredictable global economic storm and its consequences for MIT.

We are deeply grateful to the faculty, students and staff who have agreed to serve on working groups, and were encouraged by the many other volunteers who offered their assistance. Inevitably, we could ask only a fraction of the community to participate in the working groups, but we take heart in the fact that these groups will surely draw useful input from many people beyond their official members. In addition, planning within departments and units will reinforce the efforts of the Task Force; our hope is to draw great ideas from throughout the community as well as from the working groups.

As one way of keeping the planning process open, far-reaching and inclusive, we're launching the MIT Idea Bank, a forum where all members of the community can discuss how to make MIT more effective and efficient without sacrificing the Institute's core values. In addition to suggesting your own ideas -- from hardheaded efficiencies to inspired new approaches -- you can read other submissions and recommend those with the greatest power to make a difference. Task Force members will review the most popular ideas, and we hope the community's suggestions will lead to many improvements in how we conduct our operations.